All of the Warriors’ impressive streaks appeared primed to be taken down Saturday night by former Warrior Jarrett Jack and an unlikely cast of Brooklyn Nets.

But the Warriors simply would not let their slate be blemished, and that goes for those slate uniforms, too

Andre Iguodala’s 3-point basket with 5.9 seconds left in regulation tied the score at 97-all, and after surviving a virtual point-blank buzzer miss by Brook Lopez, the Warriors then blitzed Brooklyn with a 10-0 run to start overtime en route to a 107-99 victory at Oracle Arena.

Jack scored 28 points, including six in the final 1:45 of regulation, and appeared to have directed the now 1-9 Nets to the NBA’s biggest upset of the year. For all the 11-0 Warriors have accomplished to start the season, it would have been a mighty bitter pill to swallow.

But the Warriors, who played with starter Klay Thompson sidelined by back stiffness, wouldn’t surrender. Neither would the Nets. In the end, it came down to Iguodala’s make, Lopez’s miss, and who had the most left in the tank for OT.

It turned out to be the Warriors, who were just happy to get this one.

“No win is guaranteed in this league, and teams that are down are always the ones that come to bite you,” said Iguodala, who saved the day with his 3-pointer when everyone in building figured Stephen Curry would be the one to take the last shot.

***

No. 2: Cleveland win streak snapped — Meanwhile, Golden State’s opponent in last season’s Finals, the Cleveland Cavaliers, had put together 8 consecutive wins, until last night’s game in Milwaukee, when the Cavs lost in double overtime, 108-105. And it wasn’t the loss that bothered the Cavs so much as it was the way that it happened, including an inadvertent whistle during a fast break, as Dave McMenamin writes for ESPN.com…

Chief official Marc Davis explained the error to a pool reporter after the game.

“I blew the whistle with 7.4 seconds because I was in my action refereeing the play, and off to the side I heard Cleveland’s bench ask for a timeout,” Davis said. “I granted them the timeout, at which I looked at the head coach David Blatt and realized that he hadn’t asked for the timeout. [I] made an inadvertent whistle, which allowed the offensive team to call a timeout, and, in fact, they wanted a timeout and asked for a timeout.”

According to the NBA rulebook, a timeout can be granted only to either the head coach or one of the players checked into the game when the ball is dead or in control of the team making the request.

A video replay showed at least five members of the Cavs — Kevin Love, Mo Williams, assistant coaches Jim Boylan and Larry Drew, as well as athletic trainer Stephen Spiro — all signaling for timeout from the bench after LeBron James blocked Jerryd Bayless‘ layup attempt with 9.9 seconds remaining in overtime and the score tied 96-96.

However, since Love and Williams were out of the game, they were ineligible to have their request granted, as were the staff members.

When play was stopped after the whistle, both James and J.R. Smith let their frustration be known, hopping in place after the call.

“Coach said if we get a stop, then go ahead and go, because they might expect us to call a timeout,” James explained. “We got a stop, Delly [Matthew Dellavedova] got the board, outletted to me and I had a full steam, and we had an inadvertent whistle, so I’m guessing that they heard someone call timeout. But the rules, I know the rules, and only the head coach can call a timeout, and Coach Blatt didn’t call a timeout, so, you know, it’s over and done with now.”

***

No. 3: Tyler Zeller relegated to the sideline — The Boston Celtics are currently dealing with the kind of problem most NBA teams would love to face: They have too many good big men. And, at least thus far, the odd man out has been Tyler Zeller, who started nearly 60 games for the Celtics last season and was expected to be a starter during this campaign. To Zeller’s credit, according to ESPN Boston, he’s handled the change in roles like a pro…

You can tell it pains [Boston coach Brad] Stevens to not be able to play Zeller. This is a 25-year-old 7-footer who started 59 games for Boston last season. But the Celtics brought in veterans Amir Johnson and David Lee; Jared Sullinger has been the team’s best player since the start of the season; and Kelly Olynyk is a plus/minus darling who helps Boston’s second-unit thrive. For a Boston team that likes to go small, there is little space for a fifth big.

Thus, Zeller must deal with bite-sized shifts until an injury or opportunity presents itself.

“Tyler’s a really good player. We just have a lot of bigs,” said Stevens. “I don’t know how else to say it. We haven’t shot it great, so you want to play some guys that can stretch the floor and be guarded when the floor is stretched. And that leaves at least one person out.

“And I don’t know that it will always be Tyler. In fact, I see him playing a huge role for our team and he knows that. But, nonetheless, it’s really hard to deal with. But we’ve won three of the last four games and he hasn’t played as much. But he’ll help us win three out of four in some other stretch and he’ll play a lot.”

The way Zeller has handled this situation has made it a positive for the Celtics. While some players might have moped or tuned out, the easy-going Zeller never allowed the situation to impact his work ethic. And that’s now set a standard for a Boston team that believes it runs 15 deep and will see similar rotation issues crop up over the course of the 2015-16 campaign.

Zeller has become the model that Stevens can reference when other players don’t get their number called on a regular basis. How can others complain when they see the way Zeller has handled himself?

“Every day I see Tyler, Tyler is doing conditioning because he’s not getting the minutes that he normally gets,” said Sullinger, who produced his third consecutive double-double on Friday. “He’s lifting, he’s constantly in the gym working on his game, and that’s a big-time hats off to Tyler because, him going from starting to sometimes not even thought about then he’s thrown into [Friday’s] game … Tyler was ready and that’s being a pro’s pro.”

***

No. 4: Bosh is back, renewed — Last season, with the Miami Heat looking to made a late-season playoff push, they suddenly found themselves unable to relay on their 10-time All-Star power forward Chris Bosh, who was ruled out of action with a blood clot on his lung, which ended up putting Bosh in the hospital for a while. But after a long stay and rehabilitation, he’s returned to the floor for the Heat this season, and has played an important part in Miami getting off to a 6-3 start, writes Ira Winderman in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel…

“I’m just happy every game day,” he said, reflecting on where he stands at this juncture of his NBA career.

He values his game days, grateful the blood clot on his lung — the potentially life-threatening and outlook-altering ordeal that sidelined him for the final two months of last season — didn’t rob him of these moments.

“I don’t let myself go through the motions,” he said of what has been inspired play over the season’s first two weeks, amid the Heat’s 6-3 start. “I don’t give myself excuses as to why I can’t go up and down the floor quickly or whatever. I just try to go out there and do it and go out there and try to win a game and each day that I feel I have an opportunity to really just do something I love.

“This is what it’s about: You have a gift to do something you really like.”

The passion has been undeniable. And infectious.

Hassan Whiteside has the locker next to Bosh. He is there for the pregame inspiration and, lately, the postgame exhilaration.

“When you’re in the hospital for as long as he was, it really opens up your eyes,” Whiteside said. “It gave him a chance to miss the game. He always loved the game, but it is different when you miss the game. I’m excited every time he plays.”

From the moment he received clearance to resume basketball activity, Bosh started to spread his passion through the roster.

“He’s been fantastic as a leader,” coach Erik Spoelstra said. “Everybody has been turning to him in practice, shootaround, film sessions, and then you love to see him back it all up on the court.

February 7, 2015 · 7:05 AM ET

ATLANTA — They didn’t need the big stage, the bright lights and noise of the building dubbed the “Highlight Factory” in another life.

The Atlanta Hawks and Golden State Warriors could have picked any court, indoors or outdoors, anywhere in this city for a Friday night showdown pitting the two best teams in the NBA against each other for the first time this season, and the results would have been the same. The Hawks’ 124-116 win Friday night at a packed Philips Arena was an absolute masterpiece of basketball that was a decade in the making for the home team.

Ten years ago today the Hawks were in the midst of what would be a 13-69 season, a low-point for a franchise that had seen plenty of dark days, far too many to regurgitate for long-suffering Hawks fans who lived through every painful misstep.

Friday night they delivered in ways that not only stirred the emotions of a fan base and city, they also checked every basketball box on the way to an unbelievable sense of what might be this morning. At 42-9 and the clear class of the Eastern Conference, the Hawks have become the model for downtrodden teams around the league. They are 14-3 against the mighty Western Conference, have won 35 of their last 38 games, own a 25-3 record on their home floor, and remain on pace for a 68-win season. They are also making a mockery of any doubts about their ability to sustain this beautiful, pace and space game being cultivated under the meticulous and watchful eye of Mike Budenholzer.

It’s hoops karma that took years of hits and misses to get right, a gestation period not everyone could stomach, that has birthed a full-blown movement in a city where this wasn’t supposed to be possible.

Make no mistake, from the heart of the city to the suburbs that sprawl in every direction, it’s real.

I’ve been here for every step, sometimes closer to it than in recent years but always watching, and it is as real as the traffic congestion and late-arriving crowds and finicky fans everything else that comes along with professional sports in this complicated and diverse metropolitan area of 6 million people.

Through the haze of a yet another pair of say-it-ain’t-so moments, courtesy of owner Bruce Levenson and exiled general manager Danny Ferry, these Hawks have provided a storyline that overshadows all of the foolishness.

From their All-Stars, the deserving trio Jeff Teague, Al Horford and Paul Millsap, to their equally deserving other stars, Kyle Korver and DeMarre Carroll, to super subs like Dennis Schroder and Mike Scott (all brilliant in their own right at times in the win over the Warriors) the Hawks have stumbled upon the winning formula for capturing the imagination of basketball fans around the globe and most importantly here at home.

“It was amazing,” Teague said of the playoff-like atmosphere. “The crowd was into it. Everybody was into it. Kyle was yelling out. That was a first. It was a good game.”

True to their DNA, seven players scored in double figures as the Hawks bested the one team in the league that can claim a first-class ticket on the rags-to-riches express of the recent past.

“We’ve both been in the playoffs the last few years,” Warriors star Steph Curry said Friday morning, hours before the two best teams in the NBA dazzled the crowd with 48 minutes of the best basketball witnessed in these parts all season. “So it’s not like we’re unknowns. But it’s not the Lakers, it’s not New York or teams that have won championships recently.”

That’s what makes this so special for the Hawks — no one saw it coming.

Everybody knows exactly who these two teams are now. Curry and Thompson will be joined at All-Star Weekend in New York by Steve Kerr and his coaching staff. Budenholzer and his staff will coach Teague, Millsap, Horford and the Eastern Conference All-Stars.

They are both legitimate contenders this season, teams with the parts to play deep into the postseason under any circumstance. The similarities, from the sets they run to the style of play in general, are born out of the shared basketball experiences from both Kerr and Budenholzer during their San Antonio days. The locker room vibe and enjoy-the-moment mantra both teams share, however, comes from within.

The Hawks’ unselfish, no-nonsense approach works in a place known for celebrating the flashiest things. Budenholzer’s constant preaching of belief in the system, the process and ultimately one another, has forged a bond between this team and players like nothing we’ve seen from the crew with the second-longest playoff streak in the league behind the reigning world champion San Antonio Spurs.

The fact that both teams embraced the magnitude of Friday night’s game — the first matchup between teams with winning percentages this high this late in a season since 1981 — the way they did, speaks volumes about the approach and foundation laid in both places. It was indeed a measuring stick game for both sides, a chance to prove yet again that what you are seeing is real.

Kerr pointed out the obvious and parallel path for both teams; the cosmic wave they are both riding, the fact that they are getting everyone’s best shot every night, the fun that comes with competing that way every minute of every day, and the responsibility that comes with occupying that real estate at the top of the standings.

It’s foreign territory for the majority of the players on both teams.

You couldn’t tell Friday night.

No one looked uncomfortable in that spotlight, in the moment, certainly not the Hawks.

They rode the emotional wave, battled back from an early deficit and played their game down the stretch to pull away. A lesser might have buckled under the pressure, more talented Hawks teams in the past might not have possessed the mental fortitude to win a game like this one or some of the 41 others they have during this magical season.

“We have confidence in ourselves. We’re not going to back down from any team,” Scott said. “We also want to respect teams. Just like tonight, we respect the (heck) out of Golden State. Great coaching, great players. We played a hard-fought game and came out with the win.”

And they could have done it anywhere in this city that finally has a team it can believe in.

August 26, 2014 · 7:04 AM ET

No. 1:Irving to start final Team USA tune-up — As of last week, the Team USA roster for the 2014 FIBA World Cup is ready to go. (And if you missed it yesterday, our John Schuhmann pointed out how the teams in the FIBA pool boast plenty of NBA players, too.) Before FIBA play starts this weekend, though, Team USA has one last exhibition date — a matchup with Slovenia today at 2 p.m. ET (ESPN2). According to ESPN.com’s Marc Stein, Kyrie Irving will get the start at point guard tonight over Derrick Rose as coach Mike Krzyzewski irons out how best to use his All-Star guard combination:

Kyrie Irving will start opposite Goran Dragic at point guard Tuesday night when Team USA plays Slovenia in its final tuneup game leading into the FIBA World Cup.

But Team USA coach Mike Krzyzewski, in tabbing Irving as his starter against the Dragic-led Slovenians, told ESPN.com that one option under consideration is letting Irving and Derrick Rose trade off as the starter throughout the tournament, which opens Saturday in Bilbao with the Yanks facing Finland.

…

Krzyzewski says he can also envision Irving and Rose playing together once the tournament starts as Rose continues to acclimate himself to full-speed basketball after two major knee injuries limited him to just 10 games over the past two seasons with the Chicago Bulls.

“I asked him today, and he said, ‘I feel great,'” Krzyzewski said of Rose. “He did everything. He’s full go. I think there’s a part of him that’s like: ‘Quit asking me how I feel. I’m good.’ So I’m not going to ask him anymore.”

…

Having relied heavily on small-ball lineups in its last two major competitions, USA Basketball officials wanted the ability to play big lineups in this tournament when needed. The tag team of Anthony Davis and DeMarcus Cousins won’t necessarily be unveiled against a Slovenian squad that shoots 3-pointers as liberally as anyone in the field, but Team USA is sure to bust out that alignment on occasion en route to the Sept. 14 championship game, where host Spain and its hulking front-line trio of Marc Gasol, Pau Gasol and Serge Ibaka could be waiting.

…

Despite the pullouts of Kevin Durant, Kevin Love, Blake Griffin, LaMarcus Aldridge and Russell Westbrook, as well as the emotional injury loss of Paul George, Team USA remains a heavy favorite to cruise through Group C play with no real resistance. Turkey, New Zealand, the Dominican Republic and Mike Fratello-coached Ukraine are the Yanks’ other opponents in pool play after the Finland game.

July 3, 2014 · 5:07 PM ET

Given what was done and how it happened, Larry Drew – freshly minted former head coach of the Milwaukee Bucks – would be within his rights to take a few parting shots at the team’s co-owners who abruptly fired him and the fellow who lobbied for Drew’s job while his warm rump still was in the seat.

It surely would feel good, after the wringer through which he was put in a span of 72 hours last weekend, to vent in the direction of Marc Lasry and Wes Edens, the co-owners, and Jason Kidd, the Bucks’ new coach thanks to his friendship with Lasry.

Of course, that might somehow gum up the delivery of the checks Drew will continue to receive — $5 million due to him for the final two years of his coaching contract. Here at Hang Time HQ, we know fired head coaches who wound up inviting the mailmen to their daughters’ weddings, based on the friendships they struck up loitering by the mailbox each month, awaiting the checks owed them. Nothing to gain in making those a day late or a dollar short.

The fact is, Drew handled the ham-handed firing-and-hiring with the same grace he showed in enduring the Bucks’ 15-67 plunge to the NBA’s basement last season. Milwaukee swapped its “Fear The Dear” bumper stickers from a few years back for a “We Don’t Tank But We Sure Do Stank” motto en route to another seat at the lottery.

Sure, he was the coach, but injuries, flaws in a roster with 11 new faces, underperformances by the likes of O.J. Mayo, Gary Neal and Ersan Ilyasova, and Larry Sanders’ misdeeds conspired to drag down Milwaukee’s results. Besides, a few more victories would have cost the Bucks the No. 2 spot and thus Jabari Parker, their ready-to-go cornerstone draftee.

Anyway, Drew issued a statement through the Bucks Thursday and kept it classy:

THANK YOU MILWAUKEE

“I would like to thank Senator Herb Kohl and [general manager] John Hammond for giving me the opportunity to coach the Milwaukee Bucks this past season. Although my tenure was brief, it will forever be memorable.

“Thank you to all of the great Bucks fans for your love and support, you truly are some of the best fans in the NBA.

“My swift termination did come as a surprise to me, but I accept new owners Wesley Edens’ and Marc Lasry’s decision that they’ve made. I wish the entire Bucks organization and the great city of Milwaukee nothing but the best in the future.”

July 2, 2014 · 4:10 PM ET

HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS — Since when do coaching changes, unorthodox coaching changes like the one that impacts both the Brooklyn Nets and Milwaukee Bucks, trump the start of free agency?

Since Jason Kidd showed up in the coaching ranks and turned things upside down.

It takes some serious star power, or some absolutely drama-filled action, to knock LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, the World Cup and all the other free agents out of the headlines, even for a few hours. But Kidd did it with his escape to Milwaukee after a failed power play in Brooklyn.

We examine the Kidd fit in Milwaukee, free agency, where Kobe Bryant and the Los Angeles Lakers fit into this summer, Kevin Love, #NBA Style and so much more on Episode 167 of the Hang Time Podcast featuring NBA TV’sKristen Ledlow.

We also made sure to track down our main man Rick Fox this week. He called in from the other side of the world (he’s on location in South Africa), so we’re going to need to collect donations to pay his cell phone bill. Thanks!

Each week, we’ll ask our stable of scribes across the globe to weigh in on the most important NBA topics of the day — and then give you a chance to step on the scale, too, in the comments below.

> Is Jason Kidd the right man for the job in Milwaukee? Anything else you want to say about how this whole Kidd-to-Bucks thing went down?

Steve Aschburner, NBA.com: I’ve been out front and outspoken on this topic already, so I’ll try not to repeat any previous harangue. When Kidd was hired by Brooklyn last year, my thought was: Interesting choice but he needs to take over a rebuilding team so he can learn and grow as a coach along with his players. The win-now, veteran-heavy Nets roster seemed like (and mostly was) a mismatch. So if Kidd had been fired, oh, last December when Brooklyn was losing and got hired by Milwaukee now — sometime afterLarry Drew‘s firing — it would have seemed legit. But then, he wouldn’t have tipped his hand in craving personnel power — a privilege completely unearned at this point — or in relying so much on “buddy ball” with his wealthy pal, Bucks co-owner Marc Lasry. One more thing: Letting a coach weasel out of a four-year contract after one season to switch teams and double his pay is something the players and their union might want to bring up to the NBA owners at the next CBA talks in 2017.

Fran Blinebury, NBA.com: It was one thing to have Kidd trade in his jersey for a suit jacket and stand on the sidelines running a team packed with veterans and led by a couple of future Hall of Famers. Now the Bucks are asking him to roll up his sleeves and go to work with a 15-win club. No. I believe that job takes more of a coaching background and resume. In addition, Kidd is a guy who always creates turmoil and heads for the door at the first sign of trouble. No reason to think he’s got the stomach or the know-how for this long-term job. As our man Steve Aschburner wrote, Kidd and the new owners ham-handedly handled the whole situation. Replace Larry Drew? Fine. But you do it with a whole lot more class.

Jeff Caplan, NBA.com: Who knows if Jason Kidd’s the right man for the job in Milwaukee? Which coach was the last right man there? George Karl? Don Nelson? I’ll give Kidd this, he managed to get the Nets turned around after that clueless start. But we’ll see what kind of patience he has with a young team that needs a teacher. As for how the whole situation went down, I have one word — despicable.

Scott Howard-Cooper, NBA.com: The big picture is that we just learned a lot about how the new Bucks ownership intends to conduct business. It’s not a good lesson, of course. Beyond the obvious that Kidd and Marc Lasry just gave a clinic on how not to handle the situation, beyond the fact that Larry Drew and John Hammond are two of the classiest people in the league and deserved professionalism and honesty instead of this back-door play, Lasry gave away his honeymoon in Milwaukee and gave away his credibility to get someone who would have been a questionable hire under the most basic circumstances. Underhanded and arrogant — making a basketball decision without input from your basketball people — never looks good. Underhanded and arrogant to get a coach with one season of experience and position him to run personnel looks even worse. So, no, I really don’t have anything else to say.

John Schuhmann, NBA.com: Once the Nets found their identity in January, Kidd did a nice job of managing his rotation and getting contributions from everybody, while keeping his vets relatively fresh. He made the most of his team’s matchup advantages in the playoffs against both Toronto and Miami. He’s a basketball savant. But what happened in Brooklyn is the latest evidence that he’s just not a good person. And the most important aspect of a coach’s success is the talent he has on the roster. The Bucks are lacking in that department.

Sekou Smith, NBA.com: He could be the right man for the job, but the way this was handled makes it extremely difficult to have anything but a sour taste in your mouth about Kidd and his future in Milwaukee or anywhere else. I’m going to avoid the moral soapbox and refrain from cracking Kidd or the Bucks for doing what they have done. This is the NBA. No one goes in thinking it’s going to be all roses and lollipops. Larry Drew, as low down as he was treated by both the Bucks and ultimately Kidd, will survive this. The Bucks will even shed this drama in time. Kidd’s reputation, however, might never recover.

Lang Whitaker, NBA.com’s All Ball blog: Perhaps it came out when I was watching the Money In The Bank pay-per-view the other night, but somehow I missed the memo where Larry Drew isn’t a good coach. I enjoyed watching his Hawks teams, who utilized a balanced offense and went to the playoffs three consecutive seasons. Drew also was terrific drawing up back-picks and slip-screen plays in last minute situations; Drew was no fan of Hero Ball. I think Jason Kidd is also a very good coach, and he improved as the season went along with the Nets, and he’s a bigger “name” than Larry Drew. So that’s all great. Maybe the way this situation shook out wasn’t handled as cleanly as it could’ve/should’ve been, but it is what it is. Either way, I’d like to have seen Kidd win more than 15 games last season in Milwaukee with that roster.

July 1, 2014 · 12:01 AM ET

HANG TIME HEADQUARTERS — The identification, pursuit and securing of the right free agent at the right time can change the destiny of a franchise, when done right.

LeBron James, Carmelo Anthony, Chris Bosh, Dwyane Wade, Kyle Lowry, Luol Deng and many others could be the players that help some franchise change its destiny (James, Bosh and Wade have already done so with the Miami Heat four years ago).

We’ll find out just after midnight, when the NBA’s free agent circus begins, where some of these guys are headed. Will the Heat’s Big 3 stick around? Will Anthony or Lowry join them?

It all comes into focus now (and no, the drama kicked off well before 12:01 a.m.) …

***

Choices for the Butler, 9:05 a.m.

Lakers, Heat and Bulls join OKC in reaching out to Thunder vet Caron Butler. Butler picked OKC over Heat last year after buyout from Bucks.

June 30, 2014 · 8:43 PM ET

The first thing Marc Lasry is going to have to do is apologize.

Apologize, not for his actual hiring of Jason Kidd to be the Milwaukee Bucks’ new head coach – though that might be in order soon enough, based on the NBA’s time-honored W-L standards – but for the manner in which he did it.

That is to say, the abrupt, secretive and unprofessional way Lasry, one of the team’s new co-owners, went courting his buddy Kidd, trampling all over business etiquette and even ethics by filling one job that wasn’t vacant and throwing several more held by longtime respected basketball executives into immediate limbo.

Lasry, who bought the Bucks this spring with hedge-fund partner Wesley Edens, already has apologized to Larry Drew, NBA sources confirmed, for the public undercutting that played out over about 48 hours. Actually the process took a little longer: Drew was in the Bucks’ war room on Draft night Thursday in suburban Milwaukee while Lasry and Edens were at the event at Brooklyn’s Barclays Center. Drew was at No. 2 pick Jabari Parker‘s introductory news conference Friday while the owners clandestinely interviewed Kidd in New York. The ham-handed maneuver leaked out Saturday and finally, on Monday, the Bucks and the Nets agreed on compensation in the form of two future second-round draft picks.

Drew still has about $5 million coming over the next two seasons, which could soothe bruised feelings from rude treatment for a lot of us. Still, there’s a right way and a wrong way to do things, and Lasry, the point man on the hire, botched this badly. He rewarded Kidd for all the wrong reasons – the former All-Star point guard wanted more money and power within the Nets organization but got rebuffed, so he turned to his former financial adviser with the shiny new team – and he violated an unwritten code against hiring before firing by which even sports’ most ruthless power brokers abide.

Lasry might claim ignorance on that, being new to this fish bowl, but then Kidd should have informed him. Frankly, Kidd owes Drew an apology too because crossing the informal but well-understood line among coaches.

Lasry needs to come with some fat, sincere mea culpas to Bucks general John Hammond and front-office execs David Morway, Dave Babcock and Billy McKinney. They all might find it harder to work this season, constantly glancing over their shoulders, than it was enduring last season’s 15-67.

Contract extensions, along with the apologies, might help. You say Kidd has been hired only as the head coach? That’s what the Nets thought they were doing 12 months ago, and look where we are.

For all we know, plans already are in place for a more complete coup. But it would be nice if Kidd – looking like a me-first person after a Hall of Fame-worthy career as a pass-first point guard – proved for a couple more seasons that he can do one job well before grabbing at a cpuple more. Ditto for staying out of trouble in the domestic abuse and DUI categories. (It’s between him and his bosses, meanwhile, whether he gets an escalator clause in his contract guaranteeing him a raise every time some other team hires an ex-point guard as a coach.)

Parker probably is good without an apology. The forward from Duke and Chicago native has been so gracious and humble since the Bucks selected him that he’ll no doubt let Lasry off the hook for squashing the excitement of his arrival, the franchise’s giddiest point since the spring of 2010’s “Fear The Deer” playoff run.

But Lasry and Edens should reserve their biggest, gooiest admissions of wrongdoing for Bucks/NBA fans in Milwaukee. As much as the two private-equity billionaires have done in securing the team in the community – purchasing it for a price ($550 million) that’s whopping by anyone’s but Steve Ballmer‘s standards and moving ahead with new arena plans – this was a stylistic faux pas of the highest order.

And hopefully, only that. If this is indicative of the way the co-owners plan to operate going forward – pushing into basketball decisions simply because they can – the Bucks likely are headed sideways more than up. That’s been proven time and again as owners across all sports try and fail to replicate the George Steinbrenner model.

The Bucks are Lasry’s and Edens’ toy. They can do what they want. No one questions the chain of command. But this isn’t a board room, executive suite or trading floor, the venues where they amassed their fortunes. There’s a huge public trust and ownership involved, from season-ticket holders in VIP seats and the folks who dig deep to attend one Bradley Center game each season to the lowliest concessions worker. Milwaukee mixes in a little bit of paranoia, too, and simple expectations.

The fans deserve to know, in making their Bucks buy decisions, whether this is going to be standard operating procedure for two exuberant owners, or a hard lesson learned that won’t soon be repeated.

A few “I’m sorry” remarks delivered in a sincere, timely and public fashion – perhaps at Kidd’s introductory presser in the coming days – could smooth this over, along with some time and a sense that Kidd is focused on coaching rather than career-climbing.

June 30, 2014 · 11:08 AM ET

From NBA.com staff reports

The story that took the NBA by surprise over the weekend — Brooklyn Nets coach Jason Kidd working his way into an interview for a job with the Milwaukee Bucks — is seemingly a done deal. Kidd, who tried to power his way into the Nets’ GM gig, only to be rebuffed by team ownership, will become the Bucks’ new coach. As part of the deal, the Bucks will send the Nets two future second-round picks (2015 and ’19).

He will replace last season’s coach, Larry Drew, who went 15-67 in his first season in Milwaukee and has two seasons left on his current deal.

June 29, 2014 · 9:33 AM ET

Jabari Parker should ask the Milwaukee Bucks for a trade. Today.

If it’s buzz kill the Bucks want, that’d give them buzz kill. Why stop at the reports of buddy ball about to be played between new co-owner Marc Lasry and Jason Kidd, the Brooklyn Nets’ soon-to-be former head coach angling for power and money atop the Milwaukee team’s food chain? Go straight to Parker and remind him that, in the business of the NBA, things he talks about such as loyalty, humility and gratitude are but a rube’s game.

Then the classy kid taken No. 2 Thursday in the Draft, the franchise’s latest and greatest hope, can appropriately approach his livelihood with the necessary cynicism, ruthlessness and selfishness.

You know, like the unclassy Kidd.

Bad enough that Kidd, after one middling season as the Nets head coach, would attempt a power play within that organization to grab more authority – and allegedly a sweetened contract from the four-year deal he signed just 12 months ago – over the man (general manager Billy King) who hired him. The New York Post was first among several outlets reporting Kidd’s Machiavellian maneuver Saturday, a coup apparently snuffed by Nets owner Mikhail Prokhorov.

Worse, though, is that Lasry – the private-equity billionaire described as a “past financial partner” with Kidd, possibly as an advisor – would entertain installing Kidd as the Bucks’ president of basketball operations. That’s the lofty position for which Milwaukee apparently has sought permission to interview him. Talk of compensation (second-round draft pick?) already is in play, should Brooklyn release Kidd from the final two years of his deal.

It is a bad idea on so many levels.

First, the Bucks are full-up, their front office and coaching jobs staffed by highly competent individuals. GM John Hammond is fresh off his most rewarding Draft night ever, on the heels of a stellar 2013 move in drafting below-the-radar phenom Giannis Antetokounmpo and second-round point guard Nate Wolters. And lest Lasry or anyone else think that the Bucks merely did the no-brain thing Thursday – grabbing the best available player once Andrew Wiggins went to Cleveland – he’d be overlooking the rapport Parker already seems to have with Hammond, coach Larry Drew and their staffs, seeded in pre-draft workouts and conversations and growing toward a bond.

As for Drew, he’s a proven head coach – more proven than Kidd – after three playoff appearances in Atlanta (with smaller payrolls and less talent than Kidd’s Nets) and his grace under fire during last season’s 15-67 tanking mission.

B-b-b-but Kidd only wants to be Hammond’s and Drew’s boss? Right. Kidd wants what he wants when he wants it. He is a Hall of Fame-bound point guard with one spotty season as a coach, zero experience as an executive and chronicled flaws in his people skills. It requires no great leaps to imagine Kidd blowing out both Hammond and Drew in short order – which would be wrong even if his name were Jason Popovich.

[UPDATE, 6/30: Multiple outlets, including the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, reported later Sunday that the Bucks were talking with Kidd only about coming in as head coach. Again, Milwaukee already has a head coach, so dangling his job while he’s still in it is horrible management form for Lasry — while interviewing for it is a serious breach by Kidd of the NBA’s unwritten “coaches’ code.” Also: Kidd was hired “only” as a coach 12 months ago. That didn’t stop his power grab in Brooklyn, did it?]

The New York- and New Jersey-based media accounts of Kidd’s attempted power play within the Nets were rife with tales of Kidd’s clubhouse lawyering, coach undercutting and ego-driven antics, both in his playing days and since. Last season, after pushing for veteran coach Lawrence Frank to be hired at big money as his right-hand man, Kidd turned on Frank early in the season and got him banished from the bench.

The antithesis off the court, it seems, of the pass-first playmaker he was on the court, Kidd also has a domestic abuse charge on his resume and a guilty plea to drunk driving, hiccups that – for all of Wisconsin’s taverns – aren’t dismissed as easily in a smaller, image-conscious market such as Milwaukee.

Then there’s this bonus of a bad reason: Kidd reportedly grew envious of the bigger coaching paychecks of fellow former NBA point guards Steve Kerr and Derek Fisher, similar newbies to the sidelines who signed five-year, $25 million deals recently with Golden State and New York respectively. Heck, in an offseason of coach/owner madness – Tyronne Lue as the highest paid assistant in league history, management titles spliced on almost perfunctorily – it’s feasible that Kidd grabbed at the Nets’ personnel reins with the intent of having things blow up. Then he could shake free to link up with Lasry.

Unfortunately, Lasry and his partner Wesley Edens were at the Draft in Brooklyn Thursday night, not in St. Francis, Wis., at the Bucks headquarters or down on the Lake Michigan lakefront for the team’s fan party. The co-owners missed out on the vibe that carried the night and that Milwaukee so desperately needed. With Parker’s selection and his appreciative reaction, the Bucks hit a good team/good guy reset button, a shared sense of renewal that runs from the front office to the newest, most special rookie.

They’re now at risk of turning the franchise into Kidd’s private ATM and personal preening mirror. Parker hasn’t scored a point or swiped a pass, but already he deserves better.